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Releasing a product before your competition does = SALES
Releasing a better product than your competition = DEVELOPMENT
Whatever strategy your company uses depends a lot on the strength of the sales manager versus the development manager.
According to me, a real developer is only happy about his product when it's much better than all the rest !
-Nick-
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Currently there are 88 sales people that have voted in the survey, and 293 "real" developers 
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a day
Light a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life!
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Unless a "real" developer works for free, the only reason to build a product as far as a business is concerned is to make money. Whether you like to think about it or not, it's ALL about sales.
Rudy J. Crespin
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Rudy Crespin wrote:
as far as a business is concerned is to make money.
Exactly !!
One of the problems though is determining whether they should be looking long term or short term.
Regardz
Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining.
Said by Roger Wright about me.
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Sadly so very true.
I've lost count of the number of Sales vs Development battles I've fought. I pretty much lost everyone. As one Sales puke once said "A troublesome sale is better than no sale at all".
Michael 
Programming is great. First they pay you to introduce bugs into software. Then they pay you to remove them again.
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>As one Sales puke once said "A troublesome sale is better than >no sale at all".
My god, thats an awful salesman philosophy... Wouldn't want this guy running my sales department !!!
Luc.
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Sales, these days, always seems to be "short term" in mind, and will go with the "to market first" for a good reason: they make money. Despite the fact that a poor product will destroy a company, causing everyone to lose their jobs ... they make their money.
And when it's over ... they'll go to another company, do it again ... and they'll make their money.
Everyone else, however ... will lose.
There is NEVER a reason good enough to push a poor product to market early no matter what they think; just look at our economy ... see where the "we have to be the first to market" mentality has gotten us today.
D.
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I agree.
What is needed is a strong sense of leadership in an organization to show everyone that in the goal of long-term monitary success, there is no trade-off between quality and 'first-to-market'. Unfortunately, most organizations put the simple-minded persons in program-management & marketing positions (who usually don't understand the technology). Also, the executive staff usually doesn't give a strong sense of purpose to these people and they quickly realize that being a 'yes man' or getting short-term 'results' is the most important aspect of their jobs. Then, the company falls toward a position of always fixing 'fires' caused by program schedules that don't have any reality compared to the available resources.
Of course, the reputation of the company is shot and when the company runs out of suckers in the marketplace, and they'll quickly fold. The short-term thinkers probably cashed in before this had happened, leaving a junk company with poor management.
What companies need are true selfish leaders who are out to create wealth and who have a complete vision of the company's success--not 'managers' who blindly carry out orders and 'do thier jobs', and not executives who see thier position as simply one of 'keeping the board happy' and hiring managers.
JennyP
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I think one of the ways of solving this is to produce a product, that know body actually wants or has a use for.
Then your company can fund itself through good marketing of the product. However since the product has absolutly no use, competitors will be hard to get any position points on you.
Regardz
Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining.
Said by Roger Wright about me.
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Is it a bad thing that I instantly thought of Java? 
--
If it starts to make sense, you're in a cult.
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I feel there are to many variation to answer this questions with a simple this or that.
Answer 1: First to market. Definitly a plus but if a week would have made your product twice a stable, take the time. If it puts you five years behind ship it.
Answer 2: Define a better product. Both cases mentioned somewhere (Video and PC) I could make arguments that the better product did win. I think the better product is the one that is most cost effective. Most services available, has the wider selection of supplies.... I could also think the best product is the best based on one feature no matter what the cost is. It is all a personal evaluation.
How about answer 3: The most stable and reliable to fufilly my customers needs. But then again I am assuming my customer is not swept away in marketing hype
If you insist in finding evil in me you will find it, whether it is there or not.
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And what if you have no competitors? Well let's say their products are so weak that it almost illiminates them This is a real position of a company I'm working for. And still we are releasing kinda buggy versions... The reason is very simple. Clients wants it regardless if it has bugs or not. It saves their money even with bugs
Well, bugs bugs, but don't think that our product is that awful, LMAO. it happens once here and there, but overral the latest version is stable, clients (most of them) are very happy with it
Philip Patrick
Web-site: www.stpworks.com
"Two beer or not two beer?" Shakesbeer
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I think in the past, releasing to the market sooner was often chosen, when customers had money to burn and many wanted the latest and coolest stuff around. Nowadays, though, companies aren't spending as much, and they're making sure what they do spend is justified. They aren't necessarily buying stuff just because it's there. That's why I chose releasing a better product.
There are three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
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It depends what knowledge the customer will have of your concurence. If you and your concurrent already have released products, or have made public the new product with all the feature and a date of release, then a company may choose the better product.
But otherwise, when they see your product first, they do not know that another product, that might or might NOT be better will be released soon. And it has to be released soon to be interesting.
I think than in most cases (unfortunately, as I'd like to have more time to do better products...), releasing first is a stronger position.
Computers have enabled people to make more mistakes faster than almost any invention in history, with the possible exception of tequila and hand guns.
- Carl Gundlach
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How often does a product come out that you say, "Oh MAN! I MUST have that right away!"? My point is that in today's economy, that just doesn't happen very often. Some individuals might, but few businesses are willing to take that kind of risk on something that hasn't been proven.
Elrond wrote:
Computers have enabled people to make more mistakes faster than almost any invention in history, with the possible exception of tequila and hand guns.
- Carl Gundlach
Great quote.
There are three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
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Oups, just wrote almost the same post
Philip Patrick
Web-site: www.stpworks.com
"Two beer or not two beer?" Shakesbeer
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True. When the company sees this new product, it thinks, "that's interesting and could be useful, is there anything else and better around?". And if you're the first, there may not be anything else, and the company will probably buy it. May be not the day of the release, but there good chances that quite a few companies will buy it before the concurrent product gets out.
Of course, it depends on the industry you work in, the type of product, the things it will bring to companies.
The problem is, the company doesn't know before it's released if the concurrent product will be better than yours, and in the meantime you will have the opporunity to improve your product.
I'd like to always have the time to make a real good product, fully tested, .. for every project. Unfortunately, most of the time market constraints lead the way, and I don't even have a word to say about that. 
But I am sure what you say will be correct for other types of business area.
Computers have enabled people to make more mistakes faster than almost any invention in history, with the possible exception of tequila and hand guns.
- Carl Gundlach
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Navin wrote:
That's why I chose releasing a better product.
I would assume a better product involves more time and effort therefore more money. Unfortunatley as we have seen price has become a bigger factor in peoples decisions and not everyone takes the time to research the various options. Price is an easy thing to judge a product on. Two word processors, one is $100 and the other is $200. Most people will pick the $100 option.
Just look at Linux vs. Windows. Amazon went to Linux for no other reason than cost. Maybe Linux is better, but that was not the factor that persuaded them. Obviously a base level of quality is needed, but once reached price takes over.
Not everyone has huge IT departments or has the money/time to hire consultants on what to buy.
But as I said, I prefer releasing a better product, but it is not always done.
regards,
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa
Simon Walton wrote:
"You come across a lot of people who call themselves realists, when they are actually pessimists attempting to look intelligent."
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I agree with you to an extent... but I think you missed my point. If company A rushes a brand new product out. Company C may look at it and say, "Well, that's nice, but I can't really afford it now." A year later, when Company C is doing better, company B has released its verison of the same product, except B took more time to test and debug it, and it is more stable than company A's version. Now company B prices it similar to Company A's.
Now company C decides to buy the product, and chooses B becuase they are similarly priced, but all the software magazines say B is more reliable.
So I guess it really depends on how much sooner company A comes out. If it's just a little while, then it really isn't much of an advantage (unless they come out with a patent or something, but that's a different issue altogehter.)
I guess my overall point is that many businesses just aren't jumping the gun and buying stuff until they know they need it and it will help them in the long run.
There are three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can't.
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I would choose A because:
1º You don’t need to spend money testing your product…. let your clients do that for you
2º After your client has spend so much money with your product he as not enough budget to spend this year on the competition software
3º You can always release a service pack 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, ….. for every bug found
4º You only have to fix the bug if your client is really important
5º Your company boss is happy the because is deadlines where follow
Pedro Miranda
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1º You don’t need to spend money testing your product…. let your clients do that for you
2º After your client has spend so much money with your product he as not enough budget to spend this year on the competition software
3º You can always release a service pack 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, ….. for every bug found
4º You only have to fix the bug if your client is really important
5º Your company boss is happy the because is deadlines where follow
You would be crucified in my workplace for saying such things.
Jon Sagara
Red Swingline Staplers
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I agree totally.
The one drawback is that a buggy and incomplete application could ruin your reputation further down the line.
In some cases you can fix this by rebranding your product once it's stable: call it something completely different, and advertise all the features that you're sure work.
John
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Another drawback is that, if you have a really great idea, you will automatically start your competitors working on copying your idea as soon as you release.
An interesting case study is Microsoft's .Net framework. Why was it kept hush hush for 3 years while it was developed?
My guess is that they didn't want to scare people with misinformation (eg. I heard that MS are abandoning VB and C++... so we should ditch it and go with Delphi instead).
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John Wood wrote:
The one drawback is that a buggy and incomplete application could ruin your reputation further down the line.
i used to work for a company that did this. they actually released debug versions of the app for the first few releases. even after they went to release builds, the lack of QA, lack of coherent design and overall cruftiness of the thing killed it in the market.
-c
A man is like a rusty wheel on a rusty cart,
He sings his song as he rattles along and then he falls apart.
-- Richard Thompson
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Any good developer takes pride in his work and would not think this way. You have to care about the software you are writing otherwise there is no point in doing it.
Michael
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana
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